Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

C&O 2717

C&O 2-8-4 #2717 at Parsons engine terminal, Columbus, Ohio in July, 1946. Built by American Locomotive Company, Schenectady, NY 1943. Due to the road's southern headquarters, the C&O refused to call their 2-8-4's Berkshire types, opting for the title Kanawha after the West Virginia river the C&O main runs next to for many miles. Crews referred to them as 2700's or "Big Mikes", as they were bigger than the 2-8-2 Mikado type. C&O owned 90 Kanawhas, 70 built by ALCO and 20 built by Lima Locomotive Works.

C&O Kanawhas are probably the most prolific steam age survivors. About a dozen still exist in various parks and museums, though a couple have been scrapped since due to vandalism and weather deterioration. View full size.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.